Business and Personal Finance Dictionary

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• RETURN
  
  Your return is the profit you make on your investments, usually expressed as an annual percentage. That lets you compare the return of different investments or investments you have held for different periods of time. For example, if you bought a stock at $25 a share and sold it for $30 a share, your return would be $5. If you bought on January 3, and sold it the following January 3, that would be a 20% annual percentage return, or the $5 return divided by your $25 investment. But if you held the stock for five years before selling for $30 a share, your annual return would be 4%, because the 20% gain is divided by five years rather than one year.
  
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